


Softly sweetly

by thecountessolivia



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Albeit not very successful, Erectile Dysfunction, Face Slapping, First Time, M/M, Masturbation, Toys, emerging relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:27:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22725412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecountessolivia/pseuds/thecountessolivia
Summary: After the fall, Will can't get it up.As far as Hannibal is concerned, this is not a problem.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 146
Kudos: 715





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> OBVIOUSLY this isn't meant to be an accurate representation of how ED works.

Will comes to him with an empty pill bottle and a faint frown. 

He's fresh out of the shower, a towel hugging his hips. Watching from the sofa, Hannibal counts the droplets still patterning his shoulders, gems that move in the gold of the morning sun. Will is yet to redress his wounds, those ragged flowers of memory scattered over clean skin. They're healing well, maturing into new scars. 

"I haven't taken this stuff for a week now," Will says. 

Hannibal glances at the proffered bottle, which once contained their strongest analgesic. He and Will had emptied it together. 

“And you'd like me to replenish our stocks?"

Will stares down at the top of Hannibal's head as if startled that the reason for his approach has not been accurately deduced. A droplet slides from his hair and onto Hannibal's knee, spreading a dark patch over the fabric.

"No."

"Then you're not in pain."

"Not much. It's just—" 

Will's toes pinch the fibers of the rug beneath his feet. Hannibal waits for his courage to arrive. 

"When I was taking these, I had— side effects," Will says at last. "How long are they supposed to keep happening after you stop taking this stuff?"

"What side effects are you still having, Will?" 

There is no immediate reply. The fault line between Will's brows deepens and his eyes seem unable to settle on Hannibal’s. Hannibal understands. Only one complaint could make Will — and most men — so unforthcoming. Following the fall Hannibal had briefly found himself suffering with the same, but his own predicament didn't linger. Not with towel-draped Will Graham so often so close by. 

Hannibal gestures to the place beside himself on the couch. After a moment, Will sits down, clutching his towel in place. 

"We can rule out the drugs,” Hannibal says. “Likewise the common physical causes related to age or cardiovascular issues. Which leaves psychological causes." 

"Great," Will mutters. 

"If you'd like a probable diagnosis, then I needn't remind you that we've been under a great deal of stress since our twirl with the Dragon. In time, its effects ought to subside.”

Will could accept this crudest of reassurances. Perhaps ask when the problem is likely to resolve itself. But instead he sits in silence at Hannibal's side, hands on his knees. His eyes are downcast and his lips tight. 

There's more to this matter, then. Of course there is — there always is with Will. Hannibal need only wait, and ask the right questions.

"How widespread is the problem?" he asks. 

"I don't know how you want me to answer that."

"Involuntary morning erections?"

Will jerks his head no. More droplets stray from his hair, onto the towel he clutches about his waist. Those that remain at his nape are diamonds in the bright light of the summer morning.

"Any success with manual stimulation?"

That gains Hannibal a sideways glare. "Are you serious?"

"That depends. Are you serious about asking for my help with this?"

Will fidgets, pulling at the hem of his towel. He must feel so vulnerable now, barely clothed and so close, so intimately confessional. "Yeah," he says softly. "I want you to help me."

In that instant, Hannibal would very much like to touch him: a steady palm on the back of Will’s neck, to smooth over the dampness there, over the sheen of fear and embarrassment. Instead he waits with hands braided over his knees, a gesture to recall their sessions together, a long time ago now. He is patient for the words that will come. 

"When I try to jerk off in the shower, I can manage a semi," Will says quickly. "Sometimes. Not always. I think I've come twice in the last three weeks. Maybe."

"Do any thoughts or fantasies help deliver this result?" 

At that, Will looks ready to flee. "I don't know. Maybe. Couldn't you— do an examination on me? Isn't that a done thing?"

Hannibal hopes his intake of breath doesn’t betray him. 

He had always touched Will out of necessity, or at least a pretext thereof. This touch, too, would be out of such necessity. But this touch — this intimate, exploratory touch — is being _requested_. The reality of that does unexpected things to Hannibal's self-control. He ought to welcome the chance, seek it out like the warmth of the morning sun on his face.

But no. It would be too much too soon. Even now, nothing compares to the pleasure of peering inside the turmoil of Will’s brain, of examining its delicate structures and their potential. It’s a pleasure Hannibal wants to draw out. Moreover, the Will sat beside Hannibal in that moment is in too vulnerable a state. The conquest would be too easy, and hardly fair play. 

“Why do you want an erection, Will?”

Will scoffs and doesn't look up. “I don’t know if you're for real right now."

"It's a sincere question, if not often asked. You’re not in pain, and your survival is not dependent on getting hard.”

"The same reasons you— you'd want one." Will's tone hardens. His body betrays his tension. "The usual reasons." 

“You’re also not in a relationship.”

“We have a relationship." 

“Not a sexual one. We spend almost all of our time together. I am certain you have no partner to impress or to satisfy through penetration. And although you have many reasons not to trust me, at least we both know you can trust me not to judge you.”

The look Will gives him in reply is pure nostalgic allure: half-skittish, half-timid, filled with an aching, shapeless longing. A look Hannibal remembers from the early days of their friendship, when Will was just beginning to trust him, completely and with raw innocence.

“I want it because I used to be able to do it," Will says quietly. "Because it feels good. Because it feels _normal_.”

“Are you normal, Will? You and I know there are pleasures in this life that far surpass a common climax. If this were not the case, we wouldn't be here together, and a number of people would still be alive.”

Hannibal can see an ancient memory darken the oceans in Will’s eyes. He imagines he can almost see in them the mirage of the bloody feasts they've shared, testaments to Hannibal’s assertion.

“So I should just ignore it?” Will says through his teeth. “Never get hard or come on a regular basis ever again?”

“I'm only suggesting you ease your distress by accepting your condition, at least for the moment. It will help you relax. Meanwhile we can explore its underlying causes and try out methods to eliminate it.”

Will says nothing. He stands slowly, until he towers over Hannibal and cuts him with a gaze sharper than any blade. A smile twitches in the corner of his mouth. For a moment, Hannibal thinks he may open or drop the towel encircling his hips and show himself to Hannibal like some ancient deity ready to be worshipped. Were that to happen, Hannibal knows he would slide from the couch to his knees. 

“You're beyond transparent, you know that?” Will says.

It is Hannibal who feels suddenly exposed. Will's eyes are so knowing, clear prisms for Hannibal's every desire. 

“Only to you," he says.

“I want you to treat my condition, Dr Lecter."

In the golden silence of the morning, the only sound Hannibal can hear is his own breath. Opportunity, difficulty, novelty, sensuality — all the muses of his life summon Hannibal from within Will's simple words. 

“A fair warning that you may find the process frustrating," he murmurs.

"I don't care," Will says. "As long as you find it frustrating too."

"Tomorrow then. An appointment. 11AM in my room. Please be on time." 


	2. Chapter 2

Hannibal has been staring at his bedroom door for some time. He usually leaves it open — not today. 

The minutes drag. Hannibal imagines their milliseconds as the specs of dust that swirl in the sharp morning sun between him and the door.

Little has distracted him from the stew of anticipation and nostalgia that's simmered inside him since waking. He feels hemmed in by both past and future, both defined now by Will. 

11 o'clock arrives and with it, two rapid knocks. Hannibal is on his feet and to the door in an instant. 

"Please, come in," he says. The phrase in his mouth sounds as if summoned from another lifetime. 

Will takes wide strides into the bedroom. The smell of clean skin and soap trails in his wake. He's showered more thoroughly than usual. He goes to the window, paces there for a moment, then peers past the curtain's edge as if spied on. He wears his summer clothes, nothing out of the ordinary, though he's left his feet bare. 

"I'd like to begin with the examination," Hannibal says, "if you're still agreeable to one." 

Will shrugs. "If you think it would help." 

It almost certainly will, though perhaps not in ways Will imagines. As Hannibal knows, the effects of a simulated medical exam can be just as effective as the outcomes of a real one. 

"While I look you over, I may wish to ask some personal questions. Is that acceptable?" 

Will gives him a quick backward glance. "You're practically hoggish for my consent this morning."

"I'm only following good medical practice. Are you ready?"

“Yeah. Where, uh—"

Hannibal steps closer, unhurried, unthreatening. “Stay where you are, please. The light by the window is better."

A blush paints Will's cheeks like a small, sudden fever. He nods once and begins to pull at his belt, though his eyes keep straying to the window. 

"Only birds and lizards out there,” Hannibal tells him. “No one will see you.” He takes a cushion from the bay seat and lays it at Will’s bare feet. “Oh, and Will?"

"Yeah?"

"If you need me to stop, please say so."

Will seems to nod again but says nothing. His eyes are as skittish as they were yesterday. He sheds his pants and underwear together and kicks them aside. He leaves his T-shirt on, one just long enough to disguise the bulk of his modesty. "I could just hold it up," he mutters in response to Hannibal's look but, after a moment, he removes the shirt as well. The golden sun paints his body, bare now but for the dressing wrapped around his shoulder. The light makes his eyes very blue. 

Tempting though it may be, now is not the time to linger over aesthetics. Hannibal's knees go to the cushion as they might into prayer. 

“You are perfectly safe,” he says. “I have washed my hands.”

A scoff comes as reply from above.

Will exposed, Hannibal kneeling — the arrangement their two bodies have thus arrived at feels revelatory. It’s a balance of mutual vulnerability that Will must have given much thought to. As Hannibal leans in, Will's hands clench into fists at his sides. His breath comes out not quite steady. 

It's nothing he hasn't seen before whilst washing and dressing Will's body. But never has Hannibal had such— focus. The scent of clean skin and soap fills his nostrils. Below a dark nest of curls, Will's penis is entirely flaccid, the circumcised glans extending just over the shapely scrotum. Set between the strong pillars of his thighs, the whole of his sex is a bundle of calm, untroubled by the tempests of Will's desires or by Hannibal's proximity. For a moment, all Hannibal wants is to cover it whole with his palm and cradle its softness and heat. 

"For completeness I ought to examine your prostate as well," he murmurs, perhaps to distract himself. "But we can save that for another time." 

Will shifts his weight from leg to leg but again says nothing. His eyes are fixed on the shore far beyond the window, his troubled breath the only sound in the room. 

Hannibal remembers his task. Gently, slowly, he scoops up Will's cock, lifting it up and to each side. In its soft and malleable state, it is barely longer than Hannibal's fingers, the skin silken to the touch. Hannibal presses the tip of his thumb along the shaft, moving from base to head, a thoroughly unscientific test of sensation. Will suppresses a gasp. Hannibal can smell the tide of blood beneath his skin gather pace. But the tide brings only a tease of tumescence to Will's cock, a slight thickening that's unlikely to proceed. 

Hannibal withdraws his hand. "By now I would expect at least a partial erection,” he says, “regardless of any feelings of arousal."

"So there's something wrong?" Will asks. His voice is rough. 

"Not physically. You appear to be whole and undamaged." Hannibal sits back on his heels, hands on his thighs. "What we need for a remedy is a dose of truth. This isn't a new problem, is it?"  
  
Will glares down at him, a storm building behind his eyes. “Go ahead then," he says quietly. "Tell me how you know."

Hannibal briefly considers his present position: it is not without risks. He decides to remain on his knees. “You told me yesterday you suspected the painkillers were to blame for this," he says. "But that would make your dysfunction a fresh development, and you are disposed to bearing your crosses for months, even years. Perhaps you had hoped your condition would resolve itself due to the recent and significant changes in your circumstances. When it didn't, you came to me.”

There's a tightening in Will's jaw and the faintest tremor beneath his skin. Neither are entirely, Hannibal thinks, caused by rage or distress. 

“Spit it out, Hannibal."

"Is this how she saw you?" Hannibal says slowly. "Your wife?” 

Will exhales sharply, but doesn't move, doesn't utter a word. The moment between them stretches. Hannibal doubts he'll regret his next action. 

He cups his fingers together into a cradle and slips them once more beneath Will's cock. He lifts it up like an accusation. 

“Like this, Will. Unable to reliably muster the most basic function of manhood, no matter how attractive you may have found her. Did she waste her time using her mouth on you? Did she toil to get you hard?" 

The fists at Will’s sides tighten. “I tried," he says through his teeth.

"Tried what?"

"Not to let her see me like this. I'd go down on her, or make excuses."

"You did your marital duty. You satisfied her." 

"I did."

"Then maybe your affliction endeared you to her. Pity often does. Did it fool her into thinking you were harmless?”

Will's right hand snaps open and reforms as a fist in Hannibal's hair. He doesn't tug. His chest is moving fast. Oh, how the sunshine bathes his body and makes his anger glow from within. Hannibal would gladly prostrate himself further, fall down to kiss his feet.

"Still, how those questions must have needled her in the dead of night," he whispers, pulling against the tight grip in his hair. “ _Why can't he get it up for me? What's wrong with him? Poor broken Will_."

Hannibal doesn't see the hand connect with his cheek — it lands far too fast. But he feels it as radiant and sharp as the sun. He closes his eyes and revels in the sudden heat and pain, in Will's surprised and stuttered gasp. He records this moment in his mind as one of pure erotic communion, treasured from hereon and forever more. 

When he opens his eyes, he finds Will’s cock has stirred no further. Hannibal himself is achingly hard. He looks up. Will's chest is still fluttering, his wide eyes a kaleidoscope of feeling. He hasn't let go of Hannibal's hair.

“There,” Hannibal says quietly. “With that out of the way, we can move on.”

"All these things you said," Will says just as softly. "The things she might have thought. You don't think any of them about me, do you?"

"Of course I don't, Will."

"Because we don't have a sexual relationship."

"That’s not why.”

"Doesn't it hurt your pride that I didn't get hard when you touched me? You always wanted so much from me. Hell, you _took_ so much. But never this." 

Something pokes at the inside of Hannibal's rib cage, a pain nowhere near as pleasant as Will's slap. 

“Did _you_ think I'd make you hard?” 

"Don’t deflect, Hannibal. Answer me first.”

When Hannibal doesn't, Will yanks at his handful of hair, nearly dragging Hannibal off the cushion he kneels on. 

Hannibal steadies himself and swallows down the tightening feeling in his throat. "And if I did?" he asks. "Want this from you." 

Will's mouth twists into a bitter smile. He takes his cock in his hand, the same that had struck Hannibal's cheek. He squeezes and tugs once, very hard, then lets go. "Then this is all you'd get, Hannibal. Same as she got." 

Hannibal grasps Will's abusing hand in both his own. Resisting the urge to kiss it, he pulls it to his heart instead. His knees are beginning to ache, but he finds in himself no desire to stand. 

"I asked you yesterday why you want an erection," he says. "Do you think I need you to get hard in order to desire you?"

"If you did—" Will frowns and shakes his head. "No. You'd either put up with me like this, the way she did. Or you'd see this as another curiosity for you to explore. That's what you're doing right now, isn't it?"

"What if I told you I liked you this way?"

Will tugs his hand free and pulls away. "Don't. Don't bullshit me. You want me this way because I can't fuck you." He snatches his shirt from the floor. "I'm harmless like this, remember?"

"You can never be harmless to me, Will. You know this.”

"Then it's the illusion of harmlessness you want. Must be a pleasant indulgence."

Hannibal cannot abide this slide into self-pity and self-deception. Not with the thrill of Will's power and hurt on full display. Not with the scent of sun-kissed limbs flooding his senses, the sight of the tidy and tender mouthful between Will's thighs making Hannibal's cock ache with want. He must let himself be known.

He gets to his feet, takes a step back and makes his own state apparent. 

“You’re the only one that could ever fuck me, Will. You don’t need an erection for that.”

Will turns to him and lets the shirt drop. He blinks at the bulge tenting Hannibal's trousers, the wetness that Hannibal feels there. After a moment, he takes a step back and sinks down to the window seat behind him. He peers away quickly, then back to Hannibal. He's considering. Hannibal can almost see the planets aligning in the beautiful cosmos of his mind.

Slowly, Will pulls one foot onto the bay seat. He lets his drawn up leg fall to the side. The gesture leaves him splayed and exposed, his balls and cock like jewels of flesh in the nest of his body. Half debauched Barberini Faun, half Ignudi stolen from the Sistine ceiling. The window frames him like a canvas. The sun seems to shine through his limbs. 

"You're just standing there," Will murmurs. Whatever he reads on Hannibal's face must please him. He draws up one arm and nuzzles his wounded cheek in its bend. 

"I'm admiring," Hannibal says roughly.

"Tell me why you like me this way. If it's not the brokenness or the harmlessness. Or the vulnerability."

“Beauty, Will. Beauty as the Greeks saw it. When I look at you right now, I see every marble satyr, hero and god I ever wanted to touch in the Louvre as a boy."

"I bet you did touch them."

Hannibal cannot help a smile. "In your present state, you are an ideal. You are a fantasy."

"Flattery isn't therapy, doctor."

"No. Speaking of which, I believe we are done for today."

"Oh, are we?"

It's a Herculean effort, but Hannibal tears himself away from the vision at his window. He walks towards his writing desk. 

"I do. However, I don't like to leave my patients without a sense of having made progress."

"I think we've made some kind of progress."

Hannibal retrieves the case from the drawer and from the case, the curving black silicone implement. He made the trip into town yesterday especially and made the purchase without hesitation.

"Do you know what this is?"

Will stares at the object in Hannibal's hand. He blushes again, all the way down to his chest. The spell now broken, he squirms out of his wanton pose, pulls on his T-shirt and pads over to Hannibal's desk. 

"Yeah. I know what that is."

"It may allow you a path to release while circumventing your problem. I assume you attempted something like this during your marriage?"

"I— not really. I tried with my fingers. It sometimes worked. Sort of." 

"Use plenty of lubricant, take your time, and try not to dwell on obtaining an erection."

Will scratches at the back of his neck. With his other hand, he tugs at the hem of his shirt, all his self-consciousness returned. "You want me to use it tonight?"

"If you would. And when we meet tomorrow, we will see if we can forge another way forward."

"Another way forward through what?"

"Through your fantasies."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal thinks of Will as one of the Sistine Chapel Ignudi. Specifically this one: https://www.teggelaar.com/rome/images/imagesub/imrome/R1386.jpg


	3. Chapter 3

Later that day Hannibal takes a long drive along the coastline. He traverses the winding road over the cliffs until the sky above the sea turns bloody, then black. 

It seemed sensible to leave Will at home to his struggles and desires. Hannibal, meanwhile, has gained the space and the silence necessary to dwell on the state of his own. 

After he sent Will off with his toy and closed the door, he masturbated in the same spot they had stood in together. His climax didn’t satisfy him. The clean-up turned into an appalling job that sent Hannibal to his knees for the second time that day.

Now, thinking back to the morning, Hannibal's heart sounds a bitter note: in his beguiled state, he’d confessed to Will more than Will had to him. He’d foolishly laid and left yet another one of his great desires unanswered at Will's feet. 

He doesn’t know what awaits him at tomorrow’s appointment. But there's no turning back now, not with so much of his hope placed at stake. 

\---

They avoid each other studiously until the appointed time arrives. 

When he enters Hannibal's bedroom, Will seems calmer than the day before, but more plaintive too. Hands in his pockets, he ambles over to the sunlit window where yesterday Hannibal knelt before him and saw Will as the luminous marble idols of his Parisian youth. 

Hannibal wishes he had arranged their appointment for a later hour. The sun's slant would provide another light by which to witness Will’s body. For now he keeps his distance, until he's beckoned closer by word or look.

"Just wanna get something straight," Will says.

Hannibal makes a small gesture of invitation for him to continue. 

"It wasn't Molly's fault I couldn't get it up."

"I never thought or said it was," Hannibal says, aware of his sharp tone. He would have liked to think exactly that — it would please him. The fact that she should be mentioned again now, and by name no less, galls him. 

"It started before her. And it would have kept on happening with anyone. Or with no one at all."

"Perhaps you'd better tell me when it did start."

Hannibal just catches the twist in Will's mouth before he looks away. "Around the time of your trial," Will says. "Maybe before."

In the silence that follows, Hannibal becomes all too aware of the progress of blood in his veins. 

"Was it I who intruded into your bed, Will?"

Will's hands clench in his pockets. "It's not like you weren't always in my head anyway," he says. "But these thoughts I was having, I— I had to make them stop."

The truth of Will's predicament assembles itself into a clear picture in Hannibal's mind, a revelation beyond his hopes. “Did these thoughts return to you last night?" he asks, voice softening towards sentiment despite himself. 

Will's throat works. He peers back over his shoulder, but doesn't know where to put his gaze. "I thought about yesterday." He draws the curving black implement from his pocket and tosses it onto the window seat. "I did it. I used this."

That seems like invitation enough. Hannibal crosses the room to stand in the halo of heat and trepidation around Will's body. He doesn't touch. Instead, he touches the thing that had been inside Will, and finds himself envious of a lifeless object. He wishes the warmth it had absorbed could have lingered to pass into his fingers.

"Tell me what you thought about," he says as softly as he can.

"You on your knees," Will blurts out. "Slapping you. The way you looked at me. I still couldn't get hard but I—" His voice hitches in his throat. 

Hannibal comes closer still, a mere step. He scents the air discreetly. "But you found your release."

Will jerks his head in a nod. 

Hannibal picks up the prostate toy. He clutches it briefly, then slides it back into Will's pocket. “You finally allowed the thought of me to accompany your pleasure."

The bright light of morning and Will’s downcast lashes paint his cheeks with shadows. “I let you in," he says quietly. "I pictured you. I didn't look away. You were with me all the way."

A long held breath sails from Hannibal's lungs. He lets his hand fall onto the small of Will's back, blindly, as it might onto a map to choose a destination by chance. "Will—"

Will's eyes close. He sways back into Hannibal's touch, twists his arm behind him to grasp at Hannibal's hand. Hannibal feels as if his heart were being bathed in pure sunlight. 

"For all these years," he says, still a little breathless, "you instructed your body to extinguish your arousal at the thought of hurting me."

Will's hand tightens on Hannibal's own. There's a tremor in his touch. "It wasn't that simple. It all blurred. Maybe in my mind I needed to hurt you so I could push you away. Or maybe I liked it. But I did make myself stop. I didn't want to be one of those assholes that gets off on violent sexual fantasies."

"Even if those sexual fantasies were about me? Violence and vengeance — these things have defined us."

Will turns and brings them face to face. The contact at the small of his back breaks, but they are very close now, as close as they were atop the bluff, bloody and ecstatic. There's no blood now, but for the rush of it in Hannibal's ears and the smell of it beneath Will's skin. 

"Sex is the only intimacy we never shared,” Will says. “Even if I thought I'd never see you again, even if it all just stayed in my head, I didn't want— I wanted to believe this one thing between us could have been tender." Will's breath breaks into a shudder and his brow falls against Hannibal's brow, damp and hot. "Did you think about me in prison? Tell me you did."

An ache engulfs the bones around Hannibal's heart. He takes Will's face between his hands, as if to gather up both their sorrows. "What a question, Will," he says with a tenderness Will thinks them incapable of. "While I waited for you in my cell, we shared entire lifetimes together."

In time, Hannibal knows he will regret not taking note of who leaned in first. Their lips brush — which one of them had done it? They divide in the space of a breath, left connected at the brow and nowhere else. 

"You said you want me like this," Will whispers against him. 

"Like this and in every other way."

"Even if I can't—" 

"You found last night that an uncooperative cock is no impediment to pleasure. If I gladly fall to my knees before your affliction, and if we found a way to make you come, then where lies the matter?"

This time it's Will who steals a kiss, another quick press of warmth that radiates through Hannibal like a holy flame. "I know I didn't... react when you touched me yesterday. It doesn't mean I didn't like it." 

"You did react, as much as your body would allow you. I know you liked it. Arousal doesn't manifest in one place. I could smell it under your skin." He sinks his face into the curve of Will's shoulder, into the heat there. "I can smell it now."

Will lets out a shaking breath. He reaches for Hannibal, hands gripping for his shoulders as if for balance. “When I was trying to get off last night— God, you got so hard just from looking at me. I couldn't stop thinking about it."

"After you left here yesterday, I touched myself. The sight of you was a sword through the knots of my restraint. You were a vision.” 

Will's tongue passes over his lips, his breath falling in hot streams over Hannibal's face. “Do you want to see me again?”

Hannibal draws back and looks at him, assembling his expression into mock restraint. “I don't believe another examination will benefit—" He's silenced with a light smack to his arm. Will grins at him, half giddy, and presses down on Hannibal's shoulders.

To his knees again then, all too willingly and with a thud. By the time he arrives there, Will has wrestled open his belt and zipper and it's left to Hannibal to strip him bare. This time, he lets himself look. He's more than allowed here — he's welcome. 

Below his heaving belly, Will's cock isn't entirely soft. His body has heeded the call of his arousal and rushed enough blood into the shaft to swell it slightly but not to stiffen it. Hannibal cups his palms together and cradles all of Will's sex in his hands. He leans in and breathes in deeply. He turns his cheek to nuzzle against hot, silky flesh. He savours its give, like a ripened fruit from a harvest come home at last. And then he lets himself taste: a disbelieving brush of his tongue turned to suckling, tight-lipped pulls on the head that strain his neck and make his mouth water. 

When he draws back, they're both panting. Hannibal looks up. "Tell me what you need, Will. Do you want to hit me? Choke me with your cock?”

From thighs to shoulders, Will's body shakes. The tremor reaches his voice. "Just— show me you like this. Take me in your mouth again. Please." 

Hannibal's eyes fall closed. How could he refuse? This closeness and acceptance seem too much like a dream, one he woke from too often in his cell. He stretches his lips wide and lets Will descend into him, cock and balls whole, one full and tender mouthful. He cannot contain a groan. He feels its echoes travel up Will's body to wring a moan from Will's throat.

“Fuck. I should be hard for you. I should—" Another cry clips Will's words. His fingers sink into Hannibal's hair, but they don't twist or tug. Instead they slide through, again and again, gentle and caressing. Tender. 

A fresh ache inflames the bones around Hannibal's heart. Years of restrain crumble around him. His hands slide over warm skin to roam Will's back, cheeks, thighs. He suckles and slurps, savouring the stubbornly soft thing on his tongue, more French kiss than fellatio. He pictures himself staying like this, extinguishing the last of his breath on Will's flesh. Or letting his teeth sink in and tear. His own cock strains and aches, asking too much.

He makes himself stop. When he looks up, Will's expression is everything he'd hoped for. 

"Hard or soft," he hears himself say, "I'd stay on my knees for you." 

Will's hips stutter towards him, helpless and needy. "Please," he manages. "Hannibal, _please_."

"I want to taste you. Your climax. Can you give that to me, Will?"

Will sinks down to meet him with a kiss that collides their lips and tongues, obscene and deep, full of Will's taste and Hannibal's need. 

"Take me to bed," Will says. "That thing in my pocket— take it with you."

\---  
  
Time stretches inside the warm glow of morning. The bed is a white ocean bathed in light. The ripples and waves are made by their bodies. 

Here again Hannibal kneels — this time between Will's legs. Will lies naked on his belly, head on his folded arms. Over his shoulder, Hannibal can just catch his gaze, dreamy and dazed from simmering pleasure. His lips are very red, parted for short puffs of breath. Visions of sleeping fauns and Endymions come to Hannibal again. He wishes this moment could be as eternal as marble. 

The toy moves slowly inside Will, guided by Hannibal's hand. His cock lies nestled between his spread thighs, flushed dusty pink and still far from fully erect. Every so often, Hannibal lifts it with lube-soaked fingers, squishes it smaller, lets his thumb wrestle against the head until Will gasps and hisses for him to stop. 

Hannibal has neglected to take off his own clothes. He's neglected much of his own need, lost entirely in Will. His own desire seems miles away, an utterly inconsequential and easily ignored ache.

Time and again, Will's hips roll and hitch up, seeking after the pleasure-angle of the thing swivelling smoothly inside him. 

"I never pictured us like this," he sighs. 

With a twist of his wrist, Hannibal draws the toy out entirely, then slides it in again, watching the easy stretch of Will's body around it. He aims it for the place Will needs it most. "A rare failure of your extraordinary imagination."

Will's hands fist the sheets and he lets out a low whimper. “God. Don't you want to fuck me? You— you could."

Hannibal ignores the jerk his own cock gives at that. "Is that what you want?" 

"No. Not now. I want—" Will squirms and pants against the bed. With every stroke, the toy winds him closer to what his cock would deny him. 

Hannibal dips down to nip at Will's ear, to nuzzle into sweat-damp hair. "Say it, Will."

Will turns to strain for a kiss. "Just be patient with me," he says, almost timid. "I know I'm taking forever. But I want you to have this." 

"If this is to be my eternity," Hannibal whispers against his lips, "I will gladly accept it."

Slow then. Gentle. Minutes roll by. They have the whole day. Shadows drift across the bed to find them on their sides, curled against each other. 

"I think I'm close," Will says between quick breaths. "It's hard to tell."

Hannibal laps the sweat from the nape of his neck and breathes in deeply. He can smell the change in Will, the tightening coil of pleasure inside him. It coils inside Hannibal too. He remembers himself, and he lets go of the prostate toy to reach down and free his cock. The relief is enough to make him gasp.

"Touch yourself," he says. It could be instruction to Will or himself.

Will shakes his head hard. "Can't. Don't want to. No point."

An image swims into Hannibal's head, irresistible in more ways than one. He grips his cock and gives himself one rough stroke. "Will. The toy. Is it where you want it? Does it feel good?"

Will turns to meet him with a questioning look, but jerks his head in a nod. "Yeah. Yes, it feels good."

"I'm going to leave it inside you. Now, move a bit higher for me, please— yes, like so."  
  
Slid up the length of Hannibal's body, shivering slightly, Will clutches the sheets by the handful and waits. 

"Close your eyes. Focus on the pleasure inside you. And open your thighs, just a little."

When the length of Hannibal's cock slides between Will's thighs, they both gasp. Will's hand flies back to clutch at Hannibal's arm. His breath stutters and draws a low moan. 

"Oh God, I don't know if I can—"

"Wider, Will," Hannibal hisses against his ear. "Reach down and take it. It's _yours_. Imagine it as your own."

Silence at first, and then the sound of slowly shifting limbs, of juddering breaths. Will arches forward and down. His hand grasps at Hannibal's hard cock. 

All the languid and patient stillness around them dissolves. Hannibal lurches forward against Will's body, into the hot, tight grip of Will's hand. Will works him — himself — hard, faster, a frantic blur of want. Their hips work together, and then it's no longer just Hannibal in Will's grasp, but both their cocks, hard and soft, pressed together and melting into one towards climax. 

\---

"Yesterday you said I must have touched the statues I once admired in Paris."

They're lying together in the half-clothed, sweat-soaked aftermath, legs entwined, knees bumping, gazes locked. The sense of unreality hasn't quite lifted from Hannibal's senses and he would doubt their veracity, were he not bathed in Will's warmth and scent. 

A smile pulls at Will's mouth. "Did I guess right?"

"You did, though not all of it."

"What else did you do, Hannibal? Snap off and pocket some Grecian general’s marble dick?"

"I used to visit the museum with my aunt. We'd go at least once a month and spend the entire day saturated by centuries of beauty. But to my young eyes, nothing could match Michaelangelo’s Dying Slave.”

"I don't know that one," Will says and nestles a bit closer, as a child does to hear a story. He pillows his cheek on his hands.

“One day we'll see it together. It's the perfect expression of agony and ecstasy which I once thought possible only in art. Until I met you."

Will peers at Hannibal through slightly narrowed eyes. "What did you do to it?"

"Even at seventeen, I thought it unjust that something so beautiful could only be experienced through the eyes. The slave's genitalia were particularly alluring, something so delicately human rendered in stone. So I climbed up the pedestal to touch them. Then I put my tongue against them as well."

Will twists his face into the pillow, and it takes Hannibal a moment to realise he's shaking with silent laughter. When he looks at Hannibal again, his face is red with mirth. 

"Of course you did. Did they taste good?"

"No," Hannibal says stiffly. "They tasted of dust and cold stone."

"You should have come prepared with some kind of fancy French sauce in your pocket. Stone cold cock sauce."

"Will."

"Please tell me you got caught."

"Of course I did. A guard saw me and dragged me back to my aunt, but he was too embarrassed to tell her what I had done. Fortunately I was not barred from the premises."

"Which is good, because you definitely went back to strangle that guard."

Hannibal smiles. "I looked for him when I was older. Unfortunately he'd left his post."

Laughter has made Will's eyes soft and bright enough for Hannibal to wade his soul into. Seconds of silence swim between them, full of ease and warm light. “When you were looking at me yesterday," Will says, "I wondered if that was how you used to look at your finished tableaux. I sometimes feel like one."

"You are neither finished, nor my creation." 

He expects Will to argue, but Will's face retains its softness and ease. He reaches to stroke at Hannibal's cheek. "No. We are each other's."

Hannibal catches his hand for a kiss. He's reluctant to let it go again. "And we are both still evolving."

"Towards what though? I always wonder."

Hannibal has no ready answer to offer — he offers another kiss instead, tender and perfectly sweet. He sees no final form for either of them, only more of what this day has already delivered: another stage in the evolution of beauty. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really struggled to finish this story and I'm sorry if it's a disappointment. It's not as good as I had hoped it would be. More accurately, it doesn't adequately reflect my, erm, passion for the subject matter.


	4. Chapter 4

Entire afternoons in bed. Murmured encouragements. Fingers, lubricant, toys, tongue. All are put into the service of a singular quest: the coaxing of orgasms and erections from Will Graham's reluctant body. 

In lieu of the little blue pill, Hannibal relies on his own patience. His efforts are rewarded: Will doesn't always come but when he does, the sight of him shaking apart with pleasure under Hannibal's ministrations is a thing of ever novel beauty, like music or sunrise or Hannibal's own brand of art.

By degrees, through the alchemy of time and touch, the physical manifestation of Will’s arousal returns. It goes unspoken between them that what further aids his recovery is a small repertoire of acts that Hannibal welcomes and encourages: a slap here, a hand on the throat there — ways to navigate through Will’s early fantasies of intimacy between them, imagined as steeped in righteous violence; ways for Will to carve a path towards the tenderness he craves. 

When at long last Will sinks his cock into Hannibal's body, it is utterly tender: he trembles and gasps into Hannibal's kisses and holds Hannibal with desperate and unyielding arms, as if his erection or Hannibal himself might dissolve in his clasp. 

Will isn't the only one caught by disbelief. At times their coming together in this way seems so impossible that Hannibal observes it as if from a distance, like a panoramic painting: the late summer sun making a molten cradle of their bed; white sheets crumpling in a tectonic shift beneath the force of limbs tangled and tumbling in slow motion. Blood specking the sunlit cotton, shed from Hannibal’s hip or shoulder or wherever fingernails or teeth had registered the intensity of Will’s pleasure.

Afterwards, sore and damp with Will's sweat and semen, Hannibal lies and looks up at the satisfied and softly smiling man above him. In those moments, he wonders if every human pig he's ever slaughtered was but a blood sacrifice cast into the fires of fate in order to deliver him moments like these. 

There is but one thing he comes to miss, but finds he need not ask for it. Will understands the reason Hannibal withholds his own pleasure while he's being fucked. 

One day, after he comes, Will tumbles back onto the sheets and spreads his thighs wide and his lips in a smile. He puts one arm under his head and beckons to Hannibal with one finger.

"Come here. Use me to get off," he says. 

Hannibal needs no encouragement. His cock jerks and his world narrows to the singular image of Will Graham, the Barberini Faun sprawled on blood-spattered sheets. He crawls over Will and drags the head of his hard cock against Will's own, now soft and small. He grinds himself without restraint against tender, sticky flesh, down beneath the receding shaft and through the crease of Will's thighs. He fails to hold back the noises that surface in his throat. And though he grits his teeth at the overstimulation, Will's eyes glint and smile smugly at Hannibal's desperate noises, at the frantic strokes that send him spilling thick and hot over Will's spent sex. 

Hannibal never imagined that he might be so indulged. 

At other times, Will comes to him fresh from the shower and pulls Hannibal down to his knees. Hannibal avails him of his towel and breathes him in. He knows Will has already masturbated so that Hannibal can take him in his mouth whole and clean and lingeringly soft. Will only sighs his approval and fists Hannibal's hair, smothers him closer. Hannibal loses himself then, the way he might in the finest of meals. He suckles and slurps at Will's tender flesh and, mouth filled and breath smothered, takes himself in hand and strokes until his climax spatters to the floor and anoints Will's bare feet. 

They hold each other afterwards, barely clean, half-dressed, entirely entwined and soaked in the glow of mutual contentment. 

"Aren't you ever tempted into self-analysis," Will asks one day, fingers sliding through Hannibal's hair, "on why you like me this way? You told me it's not the vulnerability. Or some false sense of harmlessness." 

"If we are to peer over that particular garden gate," Hannibal murmurs, "then we might also examine your willingness to indulge me."

"Don't get all quid pro quo with me. And anyway, it's not exactly complicated from where I stand."

"Isn't it? Things usually are, with us."

Will's teeth nip at the top of Hannibal's ear. "Maybe I like giving you the things you want. Is that hard to believe?"

"A little. Must be the novelty of it."

Will breathes a laugh and gives Hannibal's arm a light smack. "Your turn. Why do you like getting off on me when I'm soft?"

Hannibal turns in Will's arms so that they're face to face. "It's not complicated."

For a lingering moment, Will's eyes flick over Hannibal's face, skittish, as if his gaze might drop. "Isn't it?" he asks.

"We gravitate back towards those erotic experiences which gave us that which we've desired most. You first allowed me physically intimacy while suffering from your affliction. And so I come back to that moment, and to you in that state, because they gave me you. All of you, at last."


End file.
